


Skateboarders

by alexgeorge



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-05 02:38:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17316494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexgeorge/pseuds/alexgeorge
Summary: His palm smacked against the concrete and the crack that echoed afterwards was the only sound he could hear. The pain only came later, after a peaceful moment of quiet, numb shock as he laid face-down, dirt on his clothes.





	Skateboarders

There are very few things in George O'Malley's life that ever go completely right. Whether it was falling in love with a girl that would fall for anyone other than him, whether it was killing someone on his very first day as an intern, whether it was being the best friend and never the boyfriend, the universe certainly seemed to have a special way of spitting at him at every and any opportunity.  
  
The sun was shining on a Tuesday morning: and it was shining summer-bright, pale but warm as George breathed in that fresh air. It smelled like dew and dry grass, heavy in his mouth and thick in his lungs. He smiled and squinted his eyes as he walked to keep the bright sun from blinding him. It was a good morning – if he was more optimistic, he might have called it a  _fantastic_  morning.  
  
However, said fantasticness was somewhat curbed by the pair of people that he'd found himself walking to work with. It had been extremely accidental – and George would use it as further evidence of how much the universe hated him – but he'd ended up with Cristina to his right, clutching a Starbucks cup filled with an unidentified liquid. She was complaining and ranting about something or other, but he was far too busy pretending that he was somewhere more peaceful to pay attention.  
  
To his left was yet another foe, this one in the form of a happily smirking Alex Karev. George wasn't one hundred percent sure where he'd come from – it was highly possible that he'd rolled out of the gutter as they passed him by – but there he was, walking alongside him and infringing on his 'basking in the beautiful morning' time.  
  
Well.  
  
Whatever.  
  
It was fine – because, together, Cristina and Alex sort of cancelled each other out, didn't they? They were so busy bitching and snarking at each other that if you kept your head down and didn't butt in, you could avoid becoming ensnared. Ensnaring was bad, especially first thing in the morning when George's head wasn't quite awake or alert enough to fight off their barbed-wire words.  
  
Nor, for that matter, was he at all capable of handling anything more than lounging in bed all day: just walking along this crowded street felt like it was the century's most impossible and challenging task. He watched the pavement as he walked, staring at the cracks and dirt and thrown-away gum. His friends' conversation burbled around him, like water around a rock in a river, and he could just breathe steadily as he tried to clear his mind and take in the perfect summer morning.  
  
Head down, mind elsewhere, he never saw what was coming.  
  
A youth on a skateboard.  
  
He could only have been in his mid-teens, sixteen at most but more likely roughly fourteen and tall for his age. The acne that plagued him would give a connect-the-dots enthusiast the challenge of their life but he was smiling as he weaved back and forth through the commuters that clustered on the pavement. There were a couple of tight calls where he avoided running into people by just a faint inch's space, but nothing loud or attention-drawing enough for George to notice until—  
  
From behind, the skater slammed into him with a warm and heavy thud. The skateboard skidded away and fell into the drain, wheels still turning and the pair of them fell in a messy, flailing clump of limbs and yelling, smack-down onto the pavement.  
  
George's instincts kicked in and his hands shot out to stop his face slamming right against the hard ground. His palm smacked against the concrete and the crack that echoed afterwards was the only sound he could hear. The pain only came later, after a peaceful moment of quiet, numb shock as he laid face-down, dirt on his clothes.  
  
"George?" Alex snapped, kneeling down beside him as Cristina dealt with the teenager that had tumbled as well. "George, get up man."  
  
And he did.  
  
Or he tried out.  
  
As it turned out, attempting to push himself to his feet using a broken wrist was damn fucking painful – and seemed to only result in a lot of ear-splitting yelling.  
  


*

  
  
One of the first times that George could ever remember going to hospital was when he'd gashed his leg falling out a tree his brothers had dared him to climb. He'd managed to make it high into the branches, but then his foot had wavered – just for a second, just one second – and that was it. Down he went.  
  
He didn't really remember the pain any more, or how much blood there was, or how loudly he'd screamed, and the memory of his father scooping him up and bundling him into the car to take him straight to the ER was faded by now.  
  
He remembered ice cream, though. One of the nurses had brought him a bowl with two brown scoops of chocolate ice cream when he'd been sitting on the hospital bed. It was still the best ice cream that he could ever remember tasting.  
  
His first hospital visit to Seattle Grace as a patient instead of an intern? It wasn't quite as enjoyable.  
  
And there was certainly no chocolate ice cream in sight.  
  
"Ow!" he yelped, wishing for stronger painkillers or a blow to the head to knock him out, "Be careful!"  
  
"I  _am_  being careful, pussy," Alex grumbled.  
  
Bailey made a highly disapproving sound behind him. "Don't abuse the patients, Karev," she said with a sigh; the reproach was answered with only an amused roll of his eyes and Alex continued checking over their first patient of the day.  
  
"Doctor Bailey!" George whined.  _Whined_. Possibly-broken-wrists were clearly not good for his manliness, he realised with a flurry of worry as he puffed out his chest to try and claim it back.  
  
She instructed Alex once more on his bed-side manner, and gave the order to send George to get his wrist x-rayed. Broken or not, it looked as if he definitely wouldn't be working that day – and considering that he knew he'd be teased mercilessly for being taken down by a damn skateboarder, George couldn't say that he objected too much to being spared from that fate.  
  


*

  
  
His brothers had laughed themselves into a frenzy when he came home from that first hospital visit. They'd been careful at first, of course, checking that he was really alright – and then they'd ripped into him with gleeful smiles on their faces. The tree hadn’t even been that high, they'd said. Only someone like George could've hurt himself falling out of it.  
  
"Go on," he said as he sat back in the wheelchair – just a sprained wrist, but it was hospital policy and now he was beginning to hate that – as his doctor wheeled him towards the lift. 'His doctor'. Bailey really hated him, didn't she? Just like the universe, she had to be out to get him. "Say it. Whatever you've got to say, Alex, just say it and get it over with."  
  
Waiting for it, just waiting for the sly comments and relentless mocking was worse than just keeping his head down until it was over. "Don't have anything to say, O'Malley," Alex said.  
  
And he sounded  _serious_. He sounded like he meant it.  
  
He was behind George, pushing the wheelchair, so George couldn’t see his face to tell if he was still smirking or not, but it sure sounded like he wasn't. "What?" he asked; if Alex had been trying to really stun him, this had certainly been the best way to try it. "C'mon. I got taken out by a teenager on a skateboard, like I'm some… some- old lady. And you're not gonna say anything about it?"  
  
"You're hurt," Alex pointed out, before he paused thoughtfully as they reached the lift. He pressed the button, causing it to light up, and they had to stop and wait for it to arrive. "D'you want me to say something? 'cause, I mean, that was—"  
  
"No!" George clarified quickly. His injured wrist was out of action, otherwise he would have employed it to gesture emphatically to drive that point home. "Absolutely not – nothing needs to be said at all, ever. Just…"  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"You're you. And I'm 'O'Malley'. I figured you'd take any opportunity you got to…"  
  
"Your wrist got broke and you could've been hurt worse," Alex said. In front of them, the elevator's doors opened so Alex wheeled them inside. It was empty apart from the pair of them: George wasn't one hundred percent sure if that was a good thing. "I'm not seeing the funny side."  
  
"Oh," George murmured – because what the hell did he say to that? This was Alex, the one guy that he'd been sure that he'd have to hide from for the rest of the year because of this injury. He looked down at his wrist, still having to try his hardest to ignore the insistent, painful throb despite the drugs, and frowned in thought. Maybe he didn't know his fellow intern as much as he'd like to – or, for that matter, as much as he should have. "Thanks?"  
  
With that the telltale smirk appeared again on Alex's face. The lift lurched and began to move upwards. "Yeah, whatever. Don't mention it," Alex grumbled, placing his hand on George's shoulder. It was just a scant second of touch, a reassuring squeeze and the comforting weight of his palm. "Just promise you're gonna get better at dodging people, O'Malley. The guy wasn't even going that fast – even Bailey would've got out of his way."  
  
George should have glared, should have snapped, should have pouted or grumbled endlessly but-  
  
This was alright.  
  
This was fine, actually, because it wasn't real. Alex's smirk was more like a smile and the words lacked the harsh edge that they otherwise would've had. George leaned back in the wheelchair as the elevator doors opened, and smiled as well. "Yeah," he said quietly, "I promise."


End file.
